


The Way Back

by Cyphomandra



Category: Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH - Robert C. O'Brien
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 19:47:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyphomandra/pseuds/Cyphomandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Izzy had to leave someone behind before. It won't happen again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sanguinity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/gifts).



The cage was at the back of the most secure laboratory, on the bottom of a series of low shelves set against an internal wall. All visitors to the building had to sign in at reception; access to the laboratory itself was restricted to the four researchers issued with pass cards, an easily intimidated cleaner, three security guards working overlapping shifts, and the man from the government, who never wore ID. He and Doctor Schultz were the only ones authorised to open the cage.

At two o'clock exactly, the laboratory door opened, and the man from the government entered, shoes clicking on the linoleum. He took the portable carrier past the scientists’ benches to the back of the laboratory, and set it down on the shelf to extract his key.

On first glance, the cage seemed to hold nothing but wood shavings and a small food dish. With attention, though, one particular clump of shavings resolved into a small brown mouse, sitting motionless, gaze fixed on the cage door. The man from the government opened both doors and held the portable cage up, gently tapping it. There was a skittering noise, then a thump, and another mouse ran into the cage on the shelf, stopping in front of the one sitting there. The carrier swayed, and the man steadied it with a finger.

One of the scientists - George Deacon, a postgraduate student on a draft extension – drifted up behind the man.

“Excuse me – sir? Any problems?”

The man shut both doors, locked the cage again and put the key back inside his jacket, patting it for security. The scientist waited, shifting uneasily from foot to foot.

“Acceptable,” the man from the government said. “You have another month.”

He turned and left, ignoring Deacon's stammering attempts to speak further. Behind him, the mouse he'd returned to the cage was washing her face with her paws, over and over. The delicate skin around her eyes was already starting to bleed.

* * *

"Right then,” Izzy said, and flopped backwards onto the countertop of the hardware store, twisting the electric cable up with her hindleg to splay artistically across her torso. “How's this?”

She shut her eyes. Immediately, her nose started itching. Unconscious, she told herself firmly, and didn’t scratch.

“It is a bit obvious,” a small voice said, and Izzy sat bolt upright, blinking, the cable falling to the surface beside her with a clunk. Arthur was still over to her right, poking around behind the back of the telephone, toy-sized screwdriver shoved behind his ear, (“While we're here,” he'd said, and Izzy had swallowed most of what she wanted to say, given how much trouble she'd had persuading anyone to help her with what they all saw as a mission that was reckless at best, and most likely suicide). Clambering out onto the countertop by the cash register to the left, and making his way towards them both, as casually as if he were in his cement block home, was Timothy. He was wearing one of the rat backpacks, the harness cinched up but still far too big for him (mice always looked small and fragile to Izzy, but Timothy seemed to take this to extremes). It was him who'd spoken.

He wriggled out from under the straps with a grunt, and dropped the pack next to Izzy's legs. The flap was shut, but Izzy could see corners of folded white paper poking out; the familiar packets Mr Ages kept all his medicines in. Timothy looked at Izzy.

“Your mother will kill me,” said Izzy.

* * *

Everything – well, almost everything - had gone brilliantly so far. Izzy opened one eye again to check, saw bars close to her and a fuzzy grey ceiling beyond, and shut it again. The roaring noises all around them were tolerable, but the swaying of the – car? The ones in the pictures looked smaller, but it wasn't open, like Farmer Fitzgibbon's tractor – was not all that pleasant, and it was easier not to look. The man who'd collected them told the owner of the hardware store that it was a twelve hour round trip; Izzy compared that to the months her parents had spent travelling to the farm from NIMH, and was suitably impressed.

Timothy had pointed out (in an annoyingly rational fashion) that his mother had overheard Mr Fitzgibbon discussing the finding of “six or seven rats,” and no mice. If Izzy was prepared to take the chance that there had been no seventh rat – and she could at least deceive the hardware store owner enough to call NIMH, and NIMH enough to send someone out – then to assume that they would collect a mouse, found with her, was almost no risk at all. When Izzy had threatened to shove him off the countertop in frustration (or bundle him into one of the cash drawers for the clerk to find in the morning), he hadn't even argued, just said, “If you feel that's necessary, but it doesn't mean I'm wrong.” He'd even put the drugs Mr Ages had given him in waterproof paper, so he could tuck a few into his cheek pouches without being affected, and made a few suggestions about Izzy's staged “mechanical rat” scene, with some additional props from the carry-pack.

The man from NIMH had taken him as well, after a short chase – Timothy had argued that it was more effective if one of them were conscious; Izzy agreed, which meant most of the remaining argument was about who got to skitter across the counter and then dive just the wrong way when the net came out – and, possibly as a result of this, Timothy had been put in a separate container, a thick white plastic thing with a few small holes punched in the top. Izzy could only just smell him.

It would be helpful, having him there. It would. Izzy told herself that, and thought about the optimistic parts of her plan, where she found any left-behind experimental rats and set them free, and not at all about the bits where there would be no rats and no escape; or, worse, where she would be forced to leave Timothy behind.

She wouldn't do that, she told herself. Not again.

* * *

“Oh hey,” Izzy said, as the researcher flipped her upside down and poked at her underbelly with a thin metal probe, but of course they couldn't hear her. This one – the dark-skinned male, George – was at least gentle during the more painful procedures like blood sampling, often muttering “sorry” under his breath as the needle went in, while the lighter female, Julie, was brisk to the point of discomfort. Despite this, Dr Yeloson, one of the two senior staff, still told her not to be so soft.

Since arriving at NIMH, Izzy and Timothy had both been intensively studied; weighed, measured, sampled, analysed and experimented on, mainly with a series of mazes. Izzy had heard about mazes from the older rats and quite liked the idea, while being unfond of the electric shock component. The first mazes NIMH gave her were pleasantly challenging and lacked in shock capacity, but as she mastered each design, they got harder and more uncomfortable. She'd had to swim around a plastic pool, navigating from one submerged platform to another in an order determined by numbered flags; as she scrambled up onto the final platform, shivering with cold and fur waterlogged, she thought wistful thoughts about Thorn Valley, and the corner of the brook there with flat round stones that were warm and smooth in the summer. Then she remembered winter there after they'd destroyed the generator, and shook herself off vigorously.

She and Timothy were being kept in separate cages, but they were usually able to catch up in the evenings, while the scientists wrote up their notes and before the laboratory was locked down. There was an ongoing and fairly amicable argument among the scientists as to whether Izzy and Timothy's test performances were actually intelligence or just trainability, and a more heated argument about whether they were from Dr Schultz’s original cohorts (Izzy usually tuned out the bits about bone age, growth plate fusion and dental wear patterns, and went back to testing how firm the cage bars were). The failure of collar tags as long-term identification was pointed out during one of these sessions, and the next day George showed up with a large buzzing metal thing that he used to tattoo numbers on the insides of their ears. Izzy, NIMH R101F, scratched vigorously at her new tattoo with her foot until George put a plastic collar on to stop her. After that it healed.

The scientists only discussed the original experiments when Dr Schultz was absent. Izzy had formed an image of the doctor from the stories her parents told, but the thin grey man who snapped at the scientists and gave them instructions that changed from one day to the next was not the enthusiastic, intelligent researcher she'd expected. He picked up Timothy on his first visit and held him up, checking the colour of his foot pads and pulling back his lip to examine his incisors. When Julie had asked if he thought Timothy was from the original group, he put Timothy back down again.

"Does it matter? No traceability, no control group – who'd publish the results? And what validity would they have?"

"Captain Hollister would be interested,"Julie said. "He's only got two." The lab went silent. Izzy sat up, trying to read their body language.

Schultz didn't move, and his features were perfectly controlled. "Indeed," he said finally. "We are all grateful for Captain Hollister's tireless support. All equally grateful."

Julie bit her lip, and kept quiet.

* * *

 

In addition to the mazes, Izzy and Timothy were given puzzles; twisted metal pieces to separate, boxes with panels that had to be slid in sequence, even locks to open. The components were small, not human-sized, and fragile; Izzy, larger and stronger, often snapped or broke them. They smelled faintly of mouse.

In the stories, all the mice except Mr Ages and Mr Frisby had been swept away, into the depths of the air conditioning ducts. But the ducts were still in the building, and if the mice had survived, they could have found another exit, even if not to the outside.

All the air conditioning ducts were now covered with a tightly meshed wire, and the cleaner checked them every night. Izzy had managed a few circuits of the lab, usually after leaping from the hands of the scientists as they transferred her from cage to bench (she'd nipped Julie once, which she felt was only fair after the blood draws), and both doors were sealed tightly, with thin metal strips nailed to the base that came right down to the floor. There were no windows. The benches were fixed away from the walls, so she hadn't managed to climb them before being recaptured, and there were no convenient piles of loose debris to hide in, assuming that at least one human hadn't been watching her every move. With time - and tools - they could perhaps work the mesh free, but so far they'd always been secured for the night. And anyway, Izzy still hadn't accomplished her mission.

"If I didn't have you to talk to I'd have gone bonkers," she said to Timothy one afternoon. The two of them were in a box on the bench waiting for their cages to be cleaned out. "I never thought I'd miss all my littermates chattering so much."

Timothy was chewing on a fragment of nut shell he'd tucked into his cheek pouches. "Me too," he said, after pulling it out with his paws. "I hope that -" and then cut himself off.

"I am glad you came with me," Izzy said. "You didn't have to. I know it was a stupid idea."

Timothy turned the shell over in his paws. "I would have come anyway."

Izzy was about to ask him what he meant when Dr Yeloson swooped down and scooped him out with one hand, hind legs dangling. It was another afternoon of looking at slides and listening to recorded voice-overs, and by the time they were back together Izzy wasn't quite sure why Timothy's comment had disturbed her.

* * *

The second hand of the clock on the laboratory wall jerked forward with a click, every second. Normally the laboratory had enough noise for the sound to be masked, but when Izzy woke up it was clearly audible, and – at first – the only sound she could hear.

It wasn't what had woken her. She uncurled and moved to the side of her cage, not bothering to be quiet.

Outside, a small brown mouse she had never seen before was studying the sheet of notes left on the bench next to her cage.

“Timothy,” Izzy said. The mouse didn't move.

A scrabbling noise, and Timothy stuck his head up over his cage base, blinking.

“Are you from G group?” Izzy asked.

At that, the mouse looked at them. She was thin, and her fur had been picked at and nibbled in places. She smelled of stress and fear, but her brown eyes were sharp.

“And you are from A,” she said.

“My parents,” Izzy said. “Oh, and Timothy's dad. Well. From G too, you'd know him.”

“Jonathan Frisby,” Timothy said. He had pushed his nose through the wires, whiskers twitching.

“I did,” the mouse said. She studied the notes again. “You're both doing well. Hollister will be pleased.” She did not sound pleased herself.

“We came to get you out,” Izzy said. The mouse glanced at her and Timothy; at the cages that held them, and then back to the notes.

"Is anyone else still here?" Timothy asked.

“My sister, Violet,” the mouse said. She considered Timothy. “He'll want you to mate with us.”

“What about you?” Izzy said. “What do you want?” She'd mated twice herself, with solid, dependable and unexciting male rats, nothing like Justin, but hadn't had any litters. She suspected that if things had been otherwise, there would have been more concern about her leaving Thorn Valley, so while she would have liked a litter of tiny ratlings it had worked out all right.

The mouse looked at Izzy again. This time, she seemed to actually see her, rather than just study her.

“What I want doesn't matter,” she said.

“What does Hollister want?”

“He wants us to kill humans.” The mouse took two short hops over towards Izzy's cage, moving stiffly. “Remove inconveniences. Short electrical circuits, start fires, poison food, plant explosives. The US government has many enemies.”

“Kill people?” Timothy sounded horrified. Izzy was less surprised than she might have expected. There was something wrong with the laboratory, lines of tension that ran through it and splintered in interactions between the staff. The post-graduate students, Julie and George, were unhappy and edgy, their arguments over status substitutes for other deeper contradictions, and the two doctors less interested in their work for its own sake and more for some unspecified, dangerous goal.

“We're very good at it,” the mouse said. It sounded like a threat. She finished sniffing at Izzy, and moved over towards Timothy's cage. “But only one of us can go out at a time, so the other is a hostage, and they want more. Not just killing. They have monitoring devices, to listen to people, and tiny cameras. I think some of them want us to use diseases, as well, but Hollister doesn't want to. He's worried he'd lose us, and we're very important to him.”

“He cares about you,” Izzy said blankly.

“We are unique,” the mouse said. “Except now we're not.”

“Does he know about us?” Timothy broke in.

“Julie keeps him updated.”

“What are you going to do?” Izzy said. Her plan had not allowed for killer mice. In hindsight, this was a definite oversight.

The mouse didn't answer. She read to the bottom of the sheet, hopped back up to the top to read a few more things, and then began moving stiffly towards the edge of the bench.

“Wait,” Izzy called. “How did you get out?”

The mouse paused.

“My name is Miranda,” she said, eventually, and then twisted around, disappearing from view. Izzy strained to hear more, but although there were a few muffled sounds – and the persistent tick of the clock – she couldn't work out where the mouse had gone, or how she'd managed to exit the laboratory.

 

* * *

Next day the man from the government – Captain Hollister – came to watch the two of them. Izzy froze up on the submerged platform maze, the water in front of her suddenly treacherous.

(“Let's pretend we've forgotten everything,” Izzy had suggested, after the mouse – Miranda – had gone, and she and Timothy were discussing her. Timothy shrugged. “They won't believe it,” he'd said, and Izzy let it drop. It was true, but that wouldn't have stopped her. What stopped her was Miranda's mention of hostages.)

“Go on,” George said, and pushed her gently with a single gloved finger. Izzy twitched at the contact, and jumped.

After the maze George rolled Izzy in a towel, and then held a blowdrier over her, the only bit about the swimming that she enjoyed. She dug her claws into the towel and leaned into the air stream, letting it fluff up her fur. Hollister was somewhere else in the laboratory, presumably watching Timothy do his own puzzles.

Once dry, Izzy was put into something new; one half of a divided cage, set up on a pedestal on the bench. There was a machine of some sort on her side, with a rotating drum and wires running in and out, the whole thing bolted to a wooden stand. Next to it was a sheet of the pictographs the scientists used to train Izzy and Timothy, but Izzy ignored them for the moment – in the other half of the cage was a young male rat, white like Mr Ages but with red eyes. Izzy trotted up to the other rat and touched whiskers.

“Hello!” she said. “Are you one of Dr Schultz's group?”

The rat looked puzzled, although he smelled friendly enough. “Stranger?” he said. “Female?” He tried to nip her in greeting, but the wire bars were too close together.

“Do you know where we are?”

“Here,” the new rat said, staring at Izzy blankly.

“Do you,” Izzy began again, but George's hand interrupted her, pulling her back gently while he slid a wooden partition into place between the two halves of the cage.

“Sorry,” George said, taking his hands away. “Really sorry,” he added, his voice dropping to a near whisper.

Start the machine to open the partition? Izzy loped over to the instructions, read them through, and began. The machine looked like the generator the Thorn Valley rats had depended upon; she'd never worked on it, but she'd seen diagrams. It was an interesting challenge, at least, and less physically uncomfortable than swimming.

She checked everything through again at the end, and then moved to put all four paws on the black mat on the cage floor, just like the diagram, before reaching out with her nose to tap the central button. Something clicked inside the machine, and then there was a humming whine that rapidly rose in intensity before snapping abruptly with a physical jolt. There was a squeak from the other side of the partition, and a smell like the meadow after summer storms.

Izzy backed away from the machine, not caring where her feet went, and George reached in to lift her up again.

“Sorry,” he said again. Below her, in the other half of the cage, the body of the rat Izzy had just met lay stretched out and still.

* * *

Timothy had not been put in a divided cage, nor had he seen any other animals. He had run through a long covered maze, he told Izzy, as she huddled up against the bars of her cage to get as close to him as she could, and the walls had gotten closer together and the ceilings lower as he'd gone on, until he was crawling on his belly in the dark. At a certain point, he had to decide whether to keep going and risk getting stuck, or turn back.

“What did you do?” Izzy asked. The bars had been cold against her fur at first. They were warmer now, but still no substitute for physical contact.

Timothy shifted in his cage. “I turned back,” he said. “I went back to the start, and they stopped the test, and wrote everything down. I don't know if that was what they wanted.”

“I don't care what they want,” Izzy said bitterly. “We have to get out of here.”

“Not yet,” Timothy said.

Izzy twisted round, trying to see him. “Not yet? Do you want to try and save those mice?” It didn't seem particularly sensible to her, but then she supposed they might be helpful in trying to escape. If they wanted to escape.

“Not those mice,” Timothy said, subdued. “My mother.”

“Your mother?” Izzy echoed. An image from the last time she'd seen Mrs Frisby (whom she admired hugely) came to her; still brave, and caring, but moving slowly and with grey-flecked fur. Mice in the wild were lucky to make it to one year, let alone two, and Mrs Frisby must be nearing three now, without any experimental treatment to prolong survival. “You want Dr Schultz's data?”

“There must be something,” Timothy said. “I know they've tried with other rats, and it hasn't worked – they've got stupider if anything – but that was after Hollister arrived. I think Dr Schultz is sabotaging the work.”

Izzy untwisted. “So what can we do?”

They had three sachets of Mr Age's sleeping powder, carried in in cheek pouches and shoved down between the side and base of Timothy's cage for safe-keeping, but what put a cat to sleep might not work on a human, and there would probably be more than one human present. And Izzy and Timothy would still have to get out of the laboratory.

Plans and possibilities were thought up, discussed and put aside. Izzy was pacing up and down the cage wall, saying “If I take the sleeping powder on a maze run, maybe you can escape while they're trying to work out what happened – ” when Miranda climbed onto the bench and came towards them.

“Good evening,” Izzy said, and then glanced at the laboratory clock. “Oh wait. Good morning.”

Miranda nodded. “You seem to have a problem.”

“Two problems.” Timothy came forward to the edge of his cage. “Getting out of NIMH, and getting the information I need for my mother.” He was obviously assuming Miranda had eavesdropped.

“Three problems,” Izzy said. “Miranda, do you and your sister really want to stay here working for that man? And there must be other subjects here, even if they aren't Dr Schultz's. The rat I – that rat today couldn't have been alone. I'm not leaving them.”

Miranda put a paw on the bars of Izzy's cage. “You killed, today.”

“Yes, and I hate it,” Izzy said. “We – the rats – moved away from humans, because we didn't want to depend on them. We don't want to be their tools, either; if they want to kill, they can do it themselves.”

Miranda's tail curled tightly around her. “So you won't do it again.”

Izzy was about to answer when Timothy cut in. “Did that man send you here?”

Miranda's tail twitched, but she answered. “Yes,” she said. “He did.”

“Right,” Timothy said, with cold fury, and backed off to the far side of his cage, back inside the half-chewed cardboard tube he used as a burrow.

Part of Izzy wanted to leave as well.

“Do you - do you communicate with him?” she asked instead. This was one thing she and Timothy had agreed to never do, not least because they could see no end to it. Shape recognition yes, communication no.

“He knows we understand him, to a degree,” Miranda said. “But no. Not like you mean. He hopes by giving me a mission which doesn't involve killing that he can make me more stable, stop me pulling out my fur and losing weight. He wants me to mate, too, but he is worried about the risks.” Her gaze slid away from Izzy and towards the back of Timothy's cage.

“You have to stop,” Izzy said. Miranda looked back at her, startled. “He's blackmailing you, just like he does the laboratory staff.”

“It's not that simple,” Miranda said.

Izzy broke away from the bars, pacing the short distance to her food bowl and back. Three problems, and all of them insoluble.

She came to a halt. “It is,” she said.

* * *

Hollister was there when the other staff arrived in the morning, cupping something in his hands. Izzy stood on her hind legs and watched as he showed whatever it was to the lab staff, his voice rising in pitch as he demanded they solve the problem.

Izzy and Timothy had gnawed patches out of Miranda's fur, all over, and then she had helped nibble similar patches on them as well, and gone back to Violet to continue with her as well. After discussion, Miranda had split one of Mr Ages' packages between her and Violet, so that in the morning Hollister would find two unconscious mice, apparently suffering from some sort of moulting condition. Something contagious.

“I'm not a vet,” Dr Schultz said to Hollister. “They're elderly animals.”

Dr Yeloson was examining Timothy. Izzy braced herself for her own examination, and more blood draws.

“This is unacceptable,” Hollister said. For the first time, Izzy could hear emotion in his voice. He sounded afraid. Without the mice, he had nothing.

That evening they left Miranda and Violet, both still sleeping, in a cage in the main lab. George had set up a heat lamp over them, and they'd both been injected with antibiotics, just in case, and fluids under the skin. Izzy and Timothy had been treated with antibiotics as well. Dr Schultz had agreed to sleep on-site and check on them, at Hollister's assistance.

Then it was down to waiting, and watching the clock. Just before eleven Izzy heard movement from the mouse cage, and twenty minutes later Miranda's voice saying, “Violet? Can you hear me?” She called a few times, with no apparent success, and then changed tack. “Izzy?”

“Yes,” Izzy said. “Can you get out?”

Rattling. “I think so,” Miranda said eventually. “The top mesh isn't fully secure, and I should be able to undo it.”

Izzy let out a breath of relief. “Is Violet all right?”

“She's not awake,” Miranda said. “She's strong, but – I think she took more of the powder. I think she wanted to. She hasn't spoken since her last mission.”

“She'll come round.” It was Timothy's voice. He hadn't spoken to Miranda since she confirmed that Hollister sent her, although he'd agreed with Izzy's plan; he sounded blunt, but not completely uncaring.

Miranda took another moment to respond. “Thank you.”

By midnight, Miranda had the cage top loosened enough to crawl out oft, and then opened both Izzy and Timothy's cages (“At least they don't padlock you in,” she said). They followed Miranda back to her cage to help with Violet.

Violet did seem closer to consciousness – she growled when Miranda tried to move her – and they were just discussing what to do next when they heard the sound of a key unlocking the main laboratory door.

“Get out,” Miranda snarled, shoving Timothy up towards the gap at the edge of the mesh. Izzy, who'd stayed on the roof, reached down to grab him and haul him up, and then they leapt down the side of the cage and raced back to their own, while footsteps came closer.

They weren't going to make it. Izzy kicked her cage door shut from the outside, ignoring the lock, and yanked Timothy into his own cage with her, pulling the door closed behind them. They dived under the shavings and cardboard – not nearly enough room – as a light clicked on overhead, and Dr Schultz said, “Now. Let's see.”

Izzy waited. Timothy was squeezed up next to her, but she would still be clearly visible if Dr Schultz looked into the cage.

He took his time, taking both mice out – Miranda hissed at him, and there was a faint squeak from Violet – and examining them. Izzy could hear him flipping pages and making notes.

“It's been a while since I've seen you,” he said. “We've had a long time together, but this isn't what I wanted for you both. I'm sorry.”

He was silent for a long time after that, checking the mice out and writing. Then he put them back in the cage – Izzy heard the catch click – and stood up. Izzy could see him in profile, looking at the mice.

“Goodnight,” he said, and turned back, his gaze sweeping over Izzy and Timothy's cages. Izzy shrunk back against Timothy, trying to hide. It seemed that Dr Schultz stood there forever, but finally he moved away. The light clicked out, and then the door locked behind him.

“Okay,” Izzy said finally.

Violet had properly woken up while Dr Schultz was examining them. She was a tougher-looking mouse than Miranda, short and stubborn, but she had the same haunted expression, and scars under her eyes. Izzy and Timothy touched whiskers with her, and then the four animals climbed down from the laboratory bench and headed towards the back of the room.

Miranda and Violet's usual cage was on a shelf there, padlocked and far more secure-looking than anything Izzy had seen. On the shelf above was the generator Izzy had rewired.

Running up and down with woodshavings took another hour. Izzy backed away when Miranda suggested she push the starter.

“No,” she said. “You do it. You've been here far too long.”

Miranda didn't argue. There was a hum, a jolt and a spark, and a curl of smoke lifted up from the woodshavings.

Fire information was posted on the walls of the laboratory, including details of the alarm system. The four of them waited by the main door while the fire caught and spread, and then the alarm started shrieking. They waited again, hidden in shadow, until one of the security guards fumbled open the door, calling over his shoulder, “This room, Ron,” and then they ran.

Miranda gave them instructions as they ran. When Hollister took her out, he'd taken her through the motor pool area, inside NIMH itself. Getting out was possible, but they needed to get as far away as soon as possible. distance and time. The alarms were still blaring when they got to the garage; the big swing doors were open, and there was a large car one right next to them, engine humming and brake lights glowing red, with the back door ajar.

* * *

Three days later, the four of them were in the back of a flatbed truck, rattling its way another twenty miles closer to Thorn Valley. Izzy had found a map at a gas station, the second time they'd switched transport, and they were slowly tacking their way across the country, heading for home. A radio in one of the cars they'd travelled in had mentioned a fire at the National Institute of Mental Health; some irreplaceable research material had been lost, the announcer said, but fortunately there had been no loss of life.

“Do you think they'll believe we were there?” Izzy said, putting down the chunk of carrot she was nibbling on (the truck owner had been kind enough to leave his lunch in the back).

“Hollister won't,” Miranda said. “But without us, his superiors won't back him. And I think the others just want to get out.”

“I wish we'd been able to get the other rats,” Izzy said.

“You can't save everyone,” Timothy said, his tone sympathetic, and Izzy looked down at her paws. “We got the rest of group G out, though. That was what you went in for.”

“But not what you went in for,” Izzy said. “Timothy, I'm sorry we didn't get the answers you wanted for your mother.”

She looked up then, even though she didn't want to see his face.

Miranda swallowed her own mouthful. “When Dr Schultz was examining us, he was reading through an old notebook,” she said, and Timothy raised his head, hope dawning. “I could read most of it. I think I know what the injections he gave us were.”

“That's fantastic!” Izzy hugged Miranda, and the small mouse staggered. “Oh wow. That's great news.”

Timothy was, as usual, calmer. “Thank you,” was all he said, but his tone conveyed the depth of his emotion.

“We may not be able to find the drugs,” Miranda cautioned. “And they may not work the same in older subjects.”

“It's still brilliant,” Izzy said happily.

“What is Thorn Valley like?” Violet asked. Her voice was raspy from disuse.

Izzy blinked in surprise. Miranda nodded at her, urging her to answer.

Izzy thought about the valley. The rats had moved there to make their own lives, away and independent from humans. If her time at NIMH had taught her anything, though, it was that their lives – all their lives – had been irrevocably shaped by humans. She thought now that they needed to learn from this and move on, not just run from it.

“It's not perfect,” she said. “But it's a start.”

**Author's Note:**

> Vast amounts of thanks to my heroic beta, China Shop, and to all the other people I shoved early sections of this under the noses of, to ask if it was worth continuing. This story was more of a scramble than usual for my Yuletide fics, and I ended up dumping the human backstory in order to focus on the lead rodents. For the curious, though, it is supposed to be set in 1971 (the year of the book's publication) and reference the CIA's illegal experimentation programs such as MK ULTRA. I borrowed Captain Hollister from Stephen King's Firestarter, where he has moved on to humans.


End file.
